Office of the Historian

441. Memorandum From Robert Pastor of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski)1

Washington, October 24, 1980

SUBJECT

  • Mini-SCC on El Salvador (U)

I strongly recommend that we delay in calling for a mini or a regular SCC on El Salvador until we receive specific recommendations and a report from DOD’s survey team, which is there now, and until CIA does an analysis of Harold Brown’s covert action recommendations. An SCC before then would not be productive, and indeed, could be counterproductive since these are extremely controversial issues, and I don’t doubt there are people in State who would try to embarrass us if they felt that these issues could be decided before the election. I think it would be a mistake to do it before. (S)

RECOMMENDATION

Therefore, I recommend that you send the memo I drafted at Tab I2 to the DCI for him to assess Harold Brown’s recommendations and tell us what they are already doing.3 (S)

  1. Source: Carter Library, National Security Council, Institutional Files, Box 183, SCM–160, El Salvador, 1/6/1981. Secret. Sent for action.↩
  2. Tab I, attached but not printed, is an undated, unsigned memorandum from Brzezinski to Turner, requesting Turner’s comments on Brown’s October 8 memorandum to Brzezinski. (See Document 439)↩
  3. Aaron indicated his approval and wrote “ok” along with his initials. Denend added a handwritten notation to Brzezinski: “ZB: This item is already on next week’s MBB agenda. Why don’t you have the attachment retyped to ask for the DCI’s opinion, say, by COB Tuesday? LD.” Denend also wrote on October 27: “Tasking given orally to Jay Rixsee.” For the Central Intelligence Agency’s response to Brown’s October 8 memorandum to Brzezinski, see Document 442. At the October 30 meeting among Muskie, Brown, and Brzezinski, the three principals discussed policy toward El Salvador. According to Muskie’s handwritten notation on Bartholomew’s October 29 memorandum to Muskie, which contained an annotated agenda for the meeting, the three agreed at the meeting to hold a PRC on Latin America followed by an SCC on El Salvador. (National Archives, RG 59, Office of the Secretary, Subject Files of Edmund S. Muskie, 1963–1981, Lot 83D66, Box 3, Muskie/Brzezinski/Brown Lunches, Oct.–Dec. 1980) No other record of the October 30 meeting has been found.↩